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Eleven days after the massacre, Wayne LaPierre – a lifelong political operative who had steadied the National Rifle Association through many crises – stood before an American flag and soberly addressed the nation about firearms and student safety: "We believe in absolutely gun-free, zero-tolerance, totally safe schools. That means no guns in America's schools, period," LaPierre said, carving out a "rare exception" for professional law enforcement. LaPierre even proposed making the mere mention of the word "guns" in schools a crime: "Such behavior in our schools should be prosecuted just as certainly as such behavior in our airports is prosecuted," LaPierre said.

This speech wasn't delivered in an alternate universe. The date was May 1st, 1999, at the NRA's national convention in Denver. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold's rampage at Columbine High School in nearby Littleton, Colorado, had just killed 13 students and teachers, shocking the conscience of the nation.

Wayne vs. Wayne: When the NRA Chief Endorsed Gun Control in Schools

The disconnect between the NRA chief's conciliatory address on that day 14 years ago and his combative press conference in the aftermath of the slaughter of 20 first-graders in Newtown, Connecticut, could hardly be more jarring. In his now-infamous December 21st tirade, LaPierre ripped the gun-free zones he once championed as an invitation to the "monsters and predators of this world," advertising to "every insane killer in America that schools are their safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk."

LaPierre then offered what he called a "proven" solution to school gun violence – one that would open a lucrative new market for the gun industry while tidily expanding the power of the NRA itself. "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," LaPierre insisted, before proposing that armed, NRA-trained vigilantes should patrol each of the nation's nearly 100,000 public schools.

The shift in LaPierre's rhetoric underscores a radical transformation within the NRA. Billing itself as the nation's "oldest civil rights organization," the NRA still claims to represent the interests of marksmen, hunters and responsible gun owners. But over the past decade and a half, the NRA has morphed into a front group for the firearms industry, whose profits are increasingly dependent on the sale of military-bred weapons like the assault rifles used in the massacres at Newtown and Aurora, Colorado. "When I was at the NRA, we said very specifically, 'We do not represent the fi rearm industry,'" says Richard Feldman, a longtime gun lobbyist who left the NRA in 1991. "We represent gun owners. End of story." But in the association's more recent history, he says, "They have really gone after the gun industry."

Today's NRA stands astride some of the ugliest currents of our politics, combining the "astroturf" activism of the Tea Party, the unlimited and undisclosed "dark money" of groups like Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS, and the sham legislating conducted on behalf of the industry through groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council. "This is not your father's NRA," says Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center, a top gun-industry watchdog. Feldman is more succinct, calling his former employer a "cynical, mercenary political cult."

The NRA's alignment with an $11.7 billion industry has fed tens of millions of dollars into the association's coffers, helping it string together victories that would have seemed fantastic just 15 years ago. The NRA has hogtied federal regulators, censored government data about gun crime and blocked renewal of the ban on assault weaponry and high-capacity magazines, which expired in 2004. The NRA secured its "number-one legislative priority" in 2005, a law blocking liability lawsuits that once threatened to bankrupt gunmakers and expose the industry's darkest business practices. Across the country, the NRA has opened new markets for firearms dealers by pushing for state laws granting citizens the right to carry hidden weapons in public and to allow those who kill in the name of self-defense to get off scot-free.

Gabby Giffords Speaks on Gun Control: 'The Time Is Now'

The NRA's unbending opposition to better gun-control measures does not actually reflect the views of the nation's gun owners or, for that matter, its claimed 4 million members. A May 2012 poll conducted by Republican pollster Frank Luntz revealed surprising moderation on behalf of NRA members: Three out of four believed that background checks should be completed before every gun purchase. Nearly two-thirds supported a requirement that gun owners alert police when their firearms are lost or stolen. "Their members are much more rational than the management of the NRA," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, co-chair of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, tells Rolling Stone. "They're out of touch."

That's by design. Today's NRA is a completely top-down organization. It has been led since 1991 by LaPierre, its chief executive, who serves at the pleasure of a 76-member board that is all but self-perpetuating. Only one-third of the board's membership is up for re-election in any given year. Voting is limited to the NRA's honored "lifetime" members and to dues-payers with at least five consecutive years of being in good standing. Write-in candidates occasionally pepper the ballot, but in practice, the tiny slice of eligible members who bother to vote rubber-stamp a slate of candidates dictated by the NRA's 10-member nominating committee – one of whose members is George Kollitides II, CEO of Freedom Group, which manufactures the Bushmaster semiautomatic that Adam Lanza used to slaughter children in Newtown.

The NRA wins because Americans lose focus. Because our outrage fades after each new heartbreak. Because by November 2014, most of us won't be thinking about the victims of Newtown. Most of us won't be thinking about guns at all – while millions of activists, riled by Wayne LaPierre and the NRA, will be thinking of nothing else. If this time is going to be different, Americans have to act different, give different, vote different. In his speech laying out his gun-safety agenda in January, President Obama was absolutely right: "This will not happen unless the American people demand it."

Sums up why I sometimes wish I could live in America. I know most of you (sane) posters at the Outhouse will do what's right. It's coming America

GLEN ROSE, Texas (AP) — Former Navy SEAL and "American Sniper" author Chris Kyle was fatally shot along with another man Saturday on a Texas gun range, a sheriff told local newspapers.Erath County Sheriff Tommy Bryant said Kyle, 38, and a second man were found dead at Rough Creek Lodge's shooting range west of Glen Rose, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and Stephenville Empire-Tribune. Glen Rose is about 50 miles southwest of Fort Worth.Bryant did not immediately return phone calls to The Associated Press seeking comment late Saturday and early Sunday. A woman who answered the phone at the lodge where the shooting occurred declined comment and referred calls to the sheriff's office.Investigators did not immediately release the name of the second victim, according to the newspapers.Witnesses told sheriff's investigators that a gunman opened fire on the men around 3:30 p.m. Saturday, then fled in a pickup truck belonging to one of the victims, according to the Star-Telegram. The newspapers said a 25-year-old man was later taken into custody in Lancaster, southeast of Dallas, and that charges were expected.Lancaster police did not immediately return calls for comment.The motive for the shooting was unclear.Kyle wrote the best-selling book, "American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History," detailing his 150-plus kills of insurgents from 1999 to 2009.Kyle was sued by former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura over a portion of the book that claims Kyle punched Ventura in a 2006 bar fight over unpatriotic remarks. Ventura says the punch never happened and that the claim by Kyle defamed him.Kyle had asked that Ventura's claims of invasion of privacy and "unjust enrichment" be dismissed, saying there was no legal basis for them. But a federal judge said the lawsuit should proceed. Both sides were told to be ready for trial by Aug. 1.

I don't get how this happened? Surely a gun range full of responsible, trained gun owners would be one of the safest places on Earth...right?

here is a snippet of the article, but the whole article contains nice details of kyle's life:

ny times wrote:Since retiring from the Navy SEALs, Chris Kyle, whom the Pentagon has deemed as among America’s deadliest snipers, would occasionally take fellow veterans shooting as a kind of therapy to salve battlefield scars.

Mr. Kyle, 38, author of the best-selling book “American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History,” was with a struggling former soldier on just such an outing on Saturday, hoping that a day at a shooting range would bring some relief, said a friend, Travis Cox.

But the Texas authorities said Sunday that the troubled veteran turned on Mr. Kyle and a second man, Chad Littlefield, shooting and killing both before fleeing in a pickup truck.

“Chad and Chris had taken a veteran out to shoot to try to help him,” Mr. Cox said. “And they were killed.”

The police identified the gunman as Eddie Ray Routh, 25, who had served in both Iraq and Afghanistan and had suffered from mental illness. The police offered no information about a possible motive.

Mr. Routh shot the men about 3:30 p.m. on Saturday at the Rough Creek Lodge, an exclusive shooting range near Glen Rose, Tex., about 50 miles southwest of Fort Worth, Sgt. Lonny Haschel, a spokesman for the State Department of Public Safety’s Highway Patrol Division, said in a statement. Mr. Routh was arrested on Saturday night at his home in Lancaster, a suburb south of Dallas. He has been charged with two counts of capital murder, Mr. Haschel said.

this is sad. chris kyle sounds like a great guy who was giving back to vets when he died. kyle takes groups of vets out to shooting ranges as a way of helping them feel more comfortable rotating back into civilian life, creating some of the camaraderie they miss from military life. one of these vets, eddie ray routh, shot kyle and a second victim on one of these trips. routh served in iraq and afghanistan and the times mentions he suffered from mental illness. i'm guessing routh has ptsd.

master ra's al ghul wrote:we sacked rome, loaded trade ships with plague rats, burned london to the ground. every time a civilization reaches the pinnacle of its decadence, we return to restore the balance.

The vets I've known have needed more help transitioning to civilian life and learning how to put their weapons away for the first time in a long while, I don't see how taking someone with mental illness issues or PTSD out and putting a gun in their hands is any kind of a good idea for anyone.

Victorian Squid wrote:The vets I've known have needed more help transitioning to civilian life and learning how to put their weapons away for the first time in a long while, I don't see how taking someone with mental illness issues or PTSD out and putting a gun in their hands is any kind of a good idea for anyone.

You need the ones that have been out for 5 to 10 years. You just need to get a level headed one that doesnt have PTSD. I dont think anyone is talking about putting a weapon in the hands of a vet that just walked out of the sandbox. You treat them the same way you would treat a cop. Constant mental health checks and certification.

avengingtitan wrote:You need the ones that have been out for 5 to 10 years. You just need to get a level headed one that doesnt have PTSD. I dont think anyone is talking about putting a weapon in the hands of a vet that just walked out of the sandbox. You treat them the same way you would treat a cop. Constant mental health checks and certification.

Well, obviously my point is that isn't what happened here. What the guy was doing, it's a recipe for...what has apparently happened. I don't see that he had ANY training in handling psych issues either.

And if someone's been out for 5-10 years, they've already made the transition we're talking about if they don't have mental issues precluding it. If that report is true, the person evaluating the vets on that trip fucked up about as bad as you can fuck something up.